Heavenly sights

Yesterday, after viewing Rushmore in the morning light, we went for a hike. We heard that the Little Devil's Tower trail was a good, short, but very strenuous hike - right up our alley. After about 10 minutes, it was almost all uphill. Us old folks had to stop and catch our breath several times. Not so for Meg and Mark. She was disappointed that there weren't many rocks to climb over. Well, her disappointment was short-lived. The last bit of the path was scrambling over rocks. We started to call her our little mountain goat. When we noticed that she had gotten off the trail and urged her to come back, she said, "It doesn't matter. I'm already up here!" And she was!. Meg was the first to get to the top. While she was playing with the little pools of water in the rocks, the rest of us caught our breath at the view. It was worth the sweat and exertion to get up here. We could see Harney Peak (the highest peak in the Black Hills,) Mt. Rushmore (the tip of Washington's nose) and the town of Custer - a 40 minute drive away. Breathtaking, simply breathtaking. We had to admonish Meg several times for wandering away from us. She was very curious, but I feared that she might fall off the side of some of these rocks. I had to remind her that she is not, in fact, a mountain goat.

Of course, the camera died as we were taking pictures. Nothing like "battery exhausted" to put a damper on things. Fortunately, it just needed a rest. We did get several more pictures out of those batteries.

At last, we sadly had to leave that heavenly place. Scrambling down those rocks was more difficult than getting up. Although it was less tiring going down hill, it was more painful.

What an exhilarating hike! What a fantastic cap to a fantastic trip.

The Monuments

Yesterday, we did the monuments: Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore. Crazy Horse was a celebration of Native American culture. They have grand plans (the monument much bigger than Mt. Rushmore, Native American university and Medical center and much more), but I really wonder if they will ever accomplish what they what they plan. It is all funded by private donations, not public funds.

After that, we headed over to Mt. Rushmore. It was beautiful, even though a hail storm came through, forcing us to spend most of our time in the visitors center. We went back later in the evening for the lighting ceremony. Very patriotic and very impressive. I'd show a picture, but our camera just isn't that good.

Today is our last day here in the Black Hills. This morning we are headed back to Rushmore to see it in the clear morning light and to hike around it.

At the Badlands

Awe-inspiring

Dry

Dusty

Huge

Eroded

Colorful

Ancient

Hot

Inhospitable
Vast

Educational

Windy

Channeled

Striated

Prairie Dogs

Pronghorns

Turkey Vultures

Insects

The Awful, Beautiful Badlands

Buffalo traffic jam

We took a trip south today toward Hot Springs. While we were in Wind Cave National Park, we had to stop for some buffalo crossings. We couldn't believe how close they were to the road. They were quite intimidating.

We stopped at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. On the way in, we saw the pack of wild horses, but they were too far away for a photo op. We learned that the movie "Hidalgo" was filmed there. They had some yearling foals for sale, so we decided to pay them a visit. This one black and white mare took a liking to Meghan and the feeling was mutual. But, alas, we can't put her in our back yard, we had to leave her behing (the horse, that is.) The tours were pretty expensive, so we just wandered around for a while.

Our next stop was Wind Cave. It was fascinating. Wind Cave is the 4th longest cave in the world, plus one of the few in the world that has "boxwork" formations, caused by underground lake water eating away at the limestone, but leaving behing the calcite that was in the cracks. It was a bit dark to take pictures, plus we had an overenthusiastic shutter bug in our group that was causing us to lag behind.

We went to church and the pool and are watching the Olympics. Tomorrow - The Badlands.

"Oh give me a home ..."

"Oh Give me a home

where the buffalo roam

and the deer and the antelope play."

Custer State Park could have been the inspiration for this song. What a mix of contrasts - buffalo, deer, antelope, bobcat, mountain lion, elk, grassy plains, forest covered hills, rocky buttes and peaks can all be found in this unspoiled park. Unspoiled that is except for continuous roar of Harleys.

Yesterday, we took a drive through the park. We got out several times to take photos of the local wildlife as well as some of the scenic overlooks. We got to see first hand how long it can take for an area to recover from forest fires. One area had a fire in 1990. You can see the felled trees, now bleached grey by the sun. The area is thick with grass and some smaller ponderous pines are growing.

After a lunch of buffalo brisket or brats, we decided to find a good hiking trail. This took us higher into the park, into the towering spires. The access roads narrowed to one lane through the tunnels, so we had to take turns with the parades of bikers. At last, we reached the trail head to the Cathedral Spires. It was a strenuous hike. 45 minutes of mostly uphill hiking over steps made of exposed tree roots, scrambling over rocks and boulders till we reached the end of the trail at the Spires. Several times we needed to stop and catch our breath - maybe not Meg - she again, was a little jackrabbit. Mark was getting too far ahead of us, so we felt he should carry the pack of water to slow him down:) The hike down was difficult, especially on my bad knees (downhill is always the worst.) Think walking down stairs only the risers could be 2 - 3 feet at times.

We were rather exhausted after that, so we stayed in and watched the Olympics before hitting the hay.

Making lemonade out of lemons - A history lesson and the Devils Tower

8/6/08

Well, the dino dig is over, so, what else is there to do in Casper, WY? The waitress at dinner was quite disturbed that we would be spending 3 days in her town. That, plus the lack of a swimming pool did not bode well for the rest of our stay. Well, we decided to see the local sites, since this part of Wyoming was on the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Trail and the Pony Express route. Hence, we took a drive out to Independence Rock, about an hour outside of town through some desolate scrub land broken up by some red earth buttes. At last, we saw it - this large, dome-shaped rock jutting out of a flat area. Pioneers on their way west, would stop there before crossing the North Platte River. Many carved their names into the rock (which is over 100 feet tall and over 700 feet wide and 1000 feet long.) It was called Independence Rock because emigrants needed to reach this point on their journey by Independence Day in order to insure that they would be passed the Rocky Mountains before the snows came.

Mark and Meghan climbed the rock. I tried, but my knees just wouldn't let me. I might have made it up, but the trip down would have been quite risky for me. Tom and Greg stayed at the bottom as well.

After a late lunch, we went to the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center. This is a great, hands-on museum for learning about these western migration trails. Meg is shown here trying to pull a handcart that would have been used by the Mormons on their migration to the Great Salt Lake. I am so glad that we did not let that waitress ruin our stay. We enjoyed our visits and learned a lot.

8/7/08

We left Casper at last. We decided to take a detour from the long, boring drive through inhospitable central Wyoming and go visit the Devils Tower National Monument in Northeast Wyoming. The further north we got, the greener and grassier things became. No longer did the land look parched and desolate. As we headed closer to Devils tower, the scenery was so beautiful - hills, Ponderosa Pine forests, breathtaking grassy valleys. Finally, off in the distance, we could see that great butte, jutting out of the landscape. I stifled a giggle to myself as I remembered Richard Dreyfus maniacally making a sculpture out of mashed potatoes. We knew we were on the right road due to the parade of bikers heading toward and away from the monument.

At last, we arrived. Wow, is it big! We made a pit stop at the visitor's center. We heard some cheers and looked up to see a tiny dot of a man at the top with his arms stretched up in victory. A climber had made it to the top. Two others were to follow. Part of me ached to climb this thing, but then reality set in:) This formation has chewed up more fit and better-qualified climbers, so I had no business trying to haul my aging body anywhere near this thing. Instead, we took a hike around the monument. Meg was like a jack rabbit, hopping up and down on the boulders that lined the path. We stared in amazement at some of the larger boulders that had fallen from this stone monolith - some were as large as a house! Mark is shown "touching" the top of the monument.

Alas, it was time to go - back to the Black Hills. Northern Wyoming was so pretty, that it was a pleasant drive. All were happy that we had made the most of our time rather than sulked that things didn't turn out as planned.

Digging for Dinosaurs - can you say "Needle in a haystack?"

Today, we headed to The Paleon Museum in Glenrock to dig up some dinosaurs. When we arrived at the museum, we spent some time looking at the specimens to get acquainted with what we would be looking for. One thing that is unique here is that the specimens were real, not just casts of bones. We loaded up into the trucks and drove out of town to the dig site. Hats? Check. Water? Check. Sunscreen? Check. We spent some time walking around looking for bone. The paleontologists worked with on differentiating between rock and bone. One way to be sure is to taste them. Bone sticks to the tongue. We were at what they called a "microsite" where the bones were likely to be very small fragments due to it being part of a high energy water area - fast moving water that broke up the bones. (Hard to believe there was water here in hot, dry Wyoming.) When we found one, we were instructed to look uphill for a "source" meaning bone that was still in its own sedimentary layer. We mostly did surface digging, armed only with a paintbrush (we could use the handle to disturb the soft sandstone and clay.) We would ask the paleontologists if something was bone or not. Well, one time, we were informed that it was NOT bone, but poop. Boy was Greg glad he didn't try to taste that!!

The bummer of the situation was that we would not be digging up bigger bones - that was something we could do on a longer dig, but not on a one day project. I guess we need to do a multi-day dig. However, it was great to have a paleontologist and a grad student at our disposal to pick their brains.

After a couple hours on site and collecting about 70 bone fragments, we headed back to the museum to get a taste of the lab work. We spent time examining these fragments and we really didn't understand what they could tell us. With some directed questioning, Mark and Tom were able to identify a mandible of a possible small reptile, a fish vertebra, a turtle underbelly, a reptile scute and a couple dinosaur teeth (a hadrosaur and ceratopsian.) It didn't seem like much until we put all the pieces together to determine that this layer of rock was built from a wet, warm climate that had fish, reptiles and dinosaurs. - Late Cretaceous - the end of the dino era.

Mark was able to spend some more time talking with the paleontologist to learn more for his Geology merit badge, plus we did see some more of the prep lab.

We headed back to the hotel in the late afternoon and veg'ed after hiking in that heat and elevation. In the evening, just to get out of this hotel (that does NOT have a pool) we walked across the street and took in a program on the Dawn of the Space age at the local planetarium. Tomorrow, we hope to check out the local historical sites.

I hope we haven't bored you too much with the technical description of what we did, but it was very interesting to Mark and Tom and to this homeschooling mom!

The Dino Adventure Begins

Today, we checked out of the hotel and took a scenic drive through the Black Hills National Forest on our way to Casper Wyoming, via Hill City, South Dakota. The kids chose to make a stop at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research and Museum of Natural History. Not quite the Field Museum in size (not by a long shot), but they had a wide variety of specimens (dinos, fish, ammonites and other ancient sea creatures, and prehistoric mammals.) One display was devoted to the "Sue" controversy. Apparently, the Institute had an agreement with the property owners to dig up "Sue", but then the Feds got involved and nullified this agreement, which led to the land owner auctioning off this fantastic T-Rex specimen, which led to the Field Museum paying a record price for the fossil - setting a terrible precident. At least this is their version of the story:) Mark did some shopping in the gift shop getting a t-shirt, a poster of geological history (I know, snoresville to many of you, but right up his alley) and a book on dino-digging travel.

After a walk through Hill City, watching the wall-to-wall bikers, we decided it was time to escape the noise and continue on to Wyoming. We emerged from the beautiful Black Hills to an endless sea of grassland and scrub land, only to be broken up by some mesas and other land formations. At last, we arrived at our hotel in Casper, looking forward to taking a relaxing dip in the pool after all that driving, only to find out that it is under construction to make way for the coming water park. Meghan decided that this chain should be called the "Worst Western."

Tomorrow, we head to the Glenrock Paleontological Museum for our dino dig day.

Our Wild West trip thus far

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Today we completed the long drive to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, passing through Wisconsin and Minnesota on the way. Mark is still recovering from a cold. To pass the time, we listened to Artemis Fowl. We enjoyed the book, especially the humor. We then checked in at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel. At the hotel, we enjoyed the waterpark and pool. We all especially enjoyed the water slide. Imagine spiraling around at lightning speed only to be shot out into the pool. What a blast!

Sunday, August 03, 2008

This morning we went to 7:30 mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. Meghan was so tired this morning that she accidently wore her pajama bottoms under her dress. Mark had a bout of nausea in church due to the heat. We checked out of the hotel and got on the road on the way to De Smet – where Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up. We spent about three hours there on her Pa’s homestead, experiencing a dugout, shanty, Ma’s little house on the claim, a pony ride, playing with barn kittens, making a button buzzer, braiding rugs, playing a pump organ, washing clothes on a washboard, a covered wagon ride around the grounds, school in the one-room school house and then lunch. Meghan is thrilled with her bonnet and her nine-patch quilt pillow kit. The only way we could leave without a full dress and pinafore was for Mom to promise that they would make them when we returned home.

Then we headed on to Rapid City. On the way, we stopped at the famous Wall Drug Store. It was so overwhelmingly large, it took us a half-hour to find a place to eat. We ended up having buffalo burgers at the Wall Drug café. People watching was very interesting. The Sturgis Rally (Harley heaven) begins tomorrow, so there were tons of bikers and biker wanna-be’s everywhere. Our hotel in Rapid city has a ton of Harley’s parked out front. Tomorrow, they will be heading north to Sturgis, while we head into Wyoming for some dino digging. Both Tom and Meghan are complaining that they are getting sore throats. Mark has always been good at sharing, but this is a bit much.